Thunder Tree
Lessons from an Urban Wildland
Will be published approx. on 30. April 2011
Book
Paperback/Softback
224 pages
978-0-87071-602-7 (ISBN)
Description
An engrossing memoir and eloquent portrait of place, The Thunder Tree shows how powerful the relationship between people and the natural world can be.
"When people connect with nature, it happens somewhere," Pyle writes. "My own point of intimate contact with the land was a ditch... Without a doubt, most of the elements of my life flowed from that canal." The High Line Canal, originally built outside of Denver, Colorado, as part of a plan to move river water to the Western plains for irrigation, became the author's place of sanctuary and play, and his birthplace as a naturalist.
This reprint of the classic book, updated with a new foreword by Richard Louv and a preface to this edition, makes one of Pyle's important early works once again available. For a new generation of readers, it offers a powerful argument for preserving opportunities for exploring nature.
"When people connect with nature, it happens somewhere," Pyle writes. "My own point of intimate contact with the land was a ditch... Without a doubt, most of the elements of my life flowed from that canal." The High Line Canal, originally built outside of Denver, Colorado, as part of a plan to move river water to the Western plains for irrigation, became the author's place of sanctuary and play, and his birthplace as a naturalist.
This reprint of the classic book, updated with a new foreword by Richard Louv and a preface to this edition, makes one of Pyle's important early works once again available. For a new generation of readers, it offers a powerful argument for preserving opportunities for exploring nature.
Reviews / Votes
"As an adult, Henry David Thoreau may have had his Walden. Annie Dillard inhabited her Tinker Creek. But as a child, Bob Pyle became his High Line Canal-an accidental wilderness, he called it, surrounded by urban wasteland."A ditch, a ravine, a cluster of trees at the end of the cul de sac, an empty (filled!) lot; to an adult's eyes, such nearby nature may seem insignificant. But to a child, these places can be doorways into whole galaxies. They're as important to human experience as wilderness, and formative to nearly every conservationists' consciousness." - Richard Louv, from the new Foreword
"Pyle has written an engrossing story of at least two levels: a charming memoir of his youth on the canal and a sobering account of uncontrolled development and loss of habitat." - Publishers Weekly
"The Thunder Tree was a huge, hollow old cottonwood in which the author and his brother once found shelter as children from a life-threatening hailstorm. The tree grew along the High Line Canal, built in the late 19th century as part of a grand plan to bring river water to the Western plains for irrigation. Only a portion of the canal was ever built, but that portion happened to run through the city of Aurora, Colorado, where the author lived as a child and young adult ... this book is about the relationship between people and natural areas and how each affects the other." - Library Journal
"Never preachy, never cloying: a powerful and memorable example of place writing." - Kirkus Reviews
More details
Language
English
Place of publication
Corvallis, OR
United States
Product notice
Paperback (trade)
Unsewn / adhesive bound
Dimensions
Height: 228 mm
Width: 155 mm
Thickness: 15 mm
Weight
354 gr
ISBN-13
978-0-87071-602-7 (9780870716027)
Copyright in bibliographic data and cover images is held by Nielsen Book Services Limited or by the publishers or by their respective licensors: all rights reserved.
Schweitzer Classification
Persons
Robert Michael Pyle is the author of Mariposa Road, Chasing Monarchs, Where Bigfoot Walks, and Wintergreen, which received a John Burroughs Medal. He lives in Southwest Washington.